What were the first organisms to have sex? We may never know the answer, but as Bill Nye explains in this Big Think interview, scientists are very interested in why sexual activity remains so popular in nature...

Bezymianny, Cleveland and Tungurahua updates for 6/1/2010

Two volcanoes along the edge of the north Pacific had explosive eruptions over the weekend. We have some more details on both of the eruptions, so I'll pass them on:

Bezymianny KVERT is excited because they claim to have predicted the explosive eruption of Bezymianny almost to the day. They had been closely monitoring the volcano and issued this statement on May 20:

According to satellite data by AVO and KVERT staff, a temperature of the thermal anomaly over the lava dome of Bezymianny volcano began increasing from May 19 (from -1 (9:49 UTC) to +18 (15:52 UTC) degrees of C). Possibly a new lava block extrudes at the lava dome of Bezymianny. And this stand for a preparation of new strong explosive eruption of Bezymianny volcano. Possibly this explosive eruption of Bezymianny volcano can occurs during May 21 - May 30 or May 21 - June 10.

Four days later, they upgraded the volcano's status to Orange:

Kamchatkan and Northern Kuriles Volcanic Activity KVERT INFORMATION RELEASE 23-10 Monday, May 24, 2010, 02:20 UTC (14:20 KDT) BEZYMIANNY VOLCANO: 55°58'N, 160°36'E; Elevation 2,882 m CURRENT AVIATION COLOR CODE IS ORANGE PREVIOUS AVIATION COLOR CODE WAS YELLOW Activity of the volcano gradually increased. Possibly a new explosive eruption of the volcano is preparing. According to satellite data, a temperature of thermal anomaly over the lava dome continues to increasing from 18 degrees of Celsius on May 19, to 48.8 degrees of Celsius on May 23.

Cleveland Meanwhile, Cleveland in the Alaska Aleutians did end up having an explosive eruption over the weekend as well. AVO issued a warning last week that the volcano was likely to erupt and upgraded the alert status to Yellow. On May 31, the volcano did end up erupting, producing a 4.8 km (16,000 foot) ash column. However, the volcano has gone quiet since this small event. (Of course, don't believe all the news you read, like this article that starts with "A volcano in Cleveland, Ohio emitted on Monday night a small ash cloud." Now, that would be news!)